Rise Escape Rooms is closing their three outstanding escape rooms today. These games each impressed us, in different ways.
Spellbound won a 2017 Golden Lock-In Award.
Luckily, the games won’t be moving too far.
Book tickets to Escape Immerse Explore: New Orleans 2019… and you can still play them!
Interview with RISE
We caught up with Mindi Plaisance, owner of RISE Escape Rooms, to talk about these changes.
What brought about RISE’s change in direction?
Mindi: We are family owned and operated. We are hands on with every aspect of both RISE Haunted House and RISE Escape Rooms. Our team quickly became escape room enthusiasts and felt we had the creative talent to bring immersive games to our community.
As successful as our games were, we realized that juggling the escape rooms along our rapidly growing Halloween attraction and extremely involved children was too much on our plate. We didn’t want to sacrifice the quality of our product so we decided that focusing all our attention on one industry would give us the opportunity to provide a great seasonal event.
What was your favorite part of owning an escape room?
Mindi:Personally, my favorite part was the creative process. I like the challenge of building unique rooms that are immersive, have a variety of puzzles, and flow well… games that are challenging, but not impossible.
Will your escape rooms live on?
Mindi: We have local buyers for all three games:
The Bookie will be going to the Clue Carré newest location in New Orleans.
Hijacked and Spellbound will be going to the 13th Gate Escape in Baton Rouge. If I know Dwayne, he will put his own spin on our games, so I am looking forward to see what he’s got in that ever-creative mind of his.
What is on the horizon for RISE?
Mindi:We are considering a 4th Dark attraction for Halloween as well as transforming our Hayride attraction into a Christmas show. The details are still in the works, but we are definitely sticking to seasonal.
We love your style. Will we ever see more escape rooms from you?
Mindi: We still have our 5-minute games that we will run through Halloween. I am sure we will be turning those over at some point.
If someone approached our team on a consulting basis and our schedule permitted it, we’d be open to that idea, but we won’t actively be seeking to get into the game design business.
Interview with Clue Carré & 13th Gate Escape
After getting the news from Mindi, we reached out to Megan Mouton, owner of Clue Carré, and Dwayne Sanburn, owner of 13th Gate Escape, to learn what we can expect from their production of RISE’s games.
When do you expect the RISE games to reopen?
Megan: The Bookie will hopefully be ready by May. We will be opening it at our 3rd location, which will be inside of Surge Trampoline Park.
Dwayne: We aren’t sure exactly how long it will take to move Spellbound and Hijacked, but we are planning on having them open before your tour in July.
What changes are you making?
Megan: We are not changing much in The Bookie. We have plans to improve and tweak some puzzles, but the overall puzzle structure will be the same.
At this point, we are also planning to make it a 45-minute game, to keep players flowing during their jump time at the trampoline park. We’ll have the option to extend it back to 60 minutes if we feel the 45-minute model isn’t working.
Dwayne: Both games are very solid. We probably will only be making minor changes.
If someone has already played and loved these games at RISE, should they replay them?
Megan: We will not be marketing The Bookie as a game to replay if you have played it at Rise.
Dwayne: It’s doubtful that we will be making enough changes to warrant a replay of either Hijacked or Spellbound.
Visit Spellbound, Hijacked, and The Bookie this July
We will miss RISE Escape Rooms. Their work is phenomenal and we’ll be sad not to stop in Tickfaw on this summer’s tour.
We highly encourage seasonal travelers to check out the other attractions at RISE.
We are, however, incredibly excited the games will be nearby and that we’ll get to see them again this summer at Clue Carré and 13th Gate Escape.
Sounds like a win-win-win to me. It’s good for seller and buyer and really good for players as the concentration of high quality games in the New Orleans area intensifies. Having played 13th Gate rooms and the two they are adding from RISE I want to tell everyone that Baton Rouge (13th gate) is a World Class Escape Room DESTINATION !!!!!!! If readers of this post are even mildly contemplating the REA New Orleans tour may I just promise you that you will not regret it.
We agree! Thank you for endorsing our New Orleans tour! We’re really looking forward to running it again this summer and seeing what 13th Gate and Clue Carré do with the RISE games.